HW#13/4: Revising My Lesson Plans

One critique I received from this assignment was to add how to engage students to actually use Audacity in class. So I added an additional portion for this lesson plan.

Students: 9th grade
 Learning Object: Through creating an one-minute mix sound track of 5 objects by using Audacity, students will learn that various sound and the duration of time can convey a narrative.
 Material: Audacity app
 Spark/Motivation:
 1. what kind of music do you like to listen and why?
 2. What kind of sound do you dislike and why not?
 3. Are there any other tools to make music besides instruments?
4. How can you use sound to convey a scary/upbeat atmosphere?

Visualization:
1. How would you use the tools in Audacity to mix the sounds?
2. Which tool do you use to trim/cut a portion?
3. How do you copy and paste your soundtrack?
4. How do you export and embed your soundtrack on Soundcloud?

HW#13/3: Observations from reading on "Making"

I liked how the articled started from a historical perspective to the present. Growing up I heard many people consider Leonardo da Vinci as a "genius." In this case he was considered as "perhaps the greatest maker of all time." I wondered what made him a genius or so great. I wonder if the prosperous time period and the prevalent culture (the arts and science) he lived had influenced his contribution. In my opinion there was a great sense of curiosity about the world through arts and sciences. I think that made him great!

I wonder what are the values in 21st century.
Pestalozzi's theories "recognizes that learning occurs from the concrete to abstract, known to unknown, and simple to the complex... He believed that there was much to learn from nature, play, and observing the world. " I think this is true and I think art, and making sessions can offer these playing and observing opportunities. However, kids normally don't get that in other rigid subjects that only have one correct answer.

It's interesting how the idea of "making" is kind of evolving as technology advances. Once the price of technology drops, educators would incorporate the technology as a means of making, which I thought was very cool. Thanks to the Internet, many people share their makings via the Internet and there are Maker Faires around the world. Playing with technology and making things with it can also empower students because technology plays a crucial role in their daily lives. The material, media, can relate to themselves. The intersection of craft, engineering, computer science, and art is another form of thinking, problem solving, and making.

HW#13/2: Research Artist: Gijs van Bon

I think Gijs van Bon is a maker who makes things very artistically and creatively. His works are mainly have to deal with human interaction and technological experiments. I love how he was able to use technology to incorporate into his artmaking in which he would bring people together. For example, in Sandwriter BLOM, a machine which draws an outline of a simple image, invites audience to color in the image, thus to make a participatory art piece. The images will be gone eventually due to nature but the piece of memory will live in the participant's mind.

I also like how Bon used technology in a very poetic and abstract way in his Skryf piece to convey a very conceptual idea about the Fleeting moment. See Below: Fleeting

Fleeting - Ink on wet paint from Gijs van Bon on Vimeo.

Reference: http://www.gijsvanbon.nl/about.html

HW# 13/1: IFTTT

The receipt I created at IFTTT website was: "If there is an event search for 'party', then call my phone." I found this fascinating because our lives can be more efficient if we could use this system well.

HW#12/4: Lesson Plans

Students: 9th grade
 Learning Object: Through creating an one-minute mix sound track of 5 objects by using Audacity, students will learn that various sound and the duration of time can convey a narrative.
 Material: Audacity app
 Spark/Motivation:
 1. what kind of music do you like to listen and why?
 2. What kind of sound do you dislike and why not?
 3. Are there any other tools to make music besides instruments?
4. How can you use sound to convey a scary/upbeat atmosphere?

 Title: Self-Portrait
 Material: found object, toys, iStop Motion app, etc.
 Objective: Through creating a stop motion animation that represent one or multiple aspects of themselves, students will learn that they make a narrative art piece in a digital form.
 Spark:
 Before I came to school this morning, I picked out this pink sweater to wear because 1. Pink is my favorite color, 2. I like the texture and the color change on this sweater. I think both of them represent my interests in color and texture.
 1.) What about you guys? Why did you wear what you wear?
 2.) Do you think your clothes and accessories can represent who you are and how?
 3.) Besides clothes, what are some other things that can represent you?
 Demonstration/Material Dialogue:
Teacher: “Based on what you guys just discussed about how you can use objects to represent you, let’s think about how we can use iStop Motion to make digital animations.
1) How would you want to show the environment/atmosphere in your video?
2) How would you do that with lighting?
 3) How would you show quick transition? How would you show smooth transition?

 Title: Digital Communication
 Material: Sketchbook, Photoshop
 Learning Objective: Through making a typographic drawing/painting using Photoshop, students will learn that they can manipulate the arrangement of font size, line- length, line-spacing, letter-spacing and style through Photoshop.
 Spark
Teacher:
 1) “Where do you mostly get your information from nowadays? Do you read from newspaper and books or do you read online?”
 2) “When you read news, or read your textbooks online. What do you notice about the words appeared on the Internet?”
 3) “When you type your essays, what format do you normally or like to use?” Demonstration/Material Dialogue Teacher:
 1) “We talked about the possible fonts and sizes when typing on Word. Now if I want to make a typographic drawing that only emphasis one word, how would you do it?”
 2) “What if I want to have a message in my artwork, which associate with a product, what are possible ways you can relate to that product?”
 3) “Think about how you want your words and images to be communicated through a flat surface. What are the possible tools you can use in Photoshop that will help you archiving your goals?”
 Closure Teacher: “We discussed the ways one can use fonts, sizes, line-space and the artistic representations of words, which could incorporate images. Now please take a moment and think about what do you want to communicate through words. How would you like to represent it on the Internet so people could notice? You can start sketching out your ideas on your sketchbooks first, when you are ready, you may start. “

HW#12/3: Idea for Final Project

My dices were "environment," "drawing," and "digital photography." Because this is a media class, I wanted to use both the qualities of tradition drawing mediums and the qualities of photography to create works that convey the same environmental issues or even the same image to show differences.

HW#12/2: Artist Research-Raven Kwok

Raven Kwok is an animator and coder from Shanghai, China. Kwok's background was photography before he explored Processing. In his work, he brings his unique vision to life through code. he usually uses geometric shapes in his videos. “I design multiple ways to recursively subdivide a geometric shape, and constantly pass a continuous independent variable through the recursions to a Perlin noise function,” Kwok said. “The recursions produce parameters that follow a certain ‘wave,’ thus creating a sense of tension within the shape, which feels like being living or organic.”

 Kwok is using coding in a very creative way because he used colors and movement to create a powerful visual experience. I can imagine how powerful the phenomenology would be if I saw his work in person.

 Algorithmic Creatures

Fractal & Recursion
Reference: http://sdtimes.com/artists-use-code-to-create-mind-bending-digital-art/2/

HW#12/1: Pop-up Card

I was intrigued by the circuit sticker sketchbook. I tried the simple circuit by folding one corner. It worked right away. When I tried the second one, following the handout. Somehow it didn't work. Then I realized that I was pressing at the wrong areas. I think having students to make their own circuit is very a very good idea. Not only students will learn something about coding, but also this project has its "coolness," which will engage students. This project changed how I see what constitute an art class!

HW#11/5: Thoughts on Student-Teacher Visit

I was relieved to hear that when teaching a technology as an art medium, many students are either quite familiar with the medium, or they are quick to grasp the tools. Many times, teachers don't need to know "everything"  in order to conduct the class. Rather, students will be interested in the medium and they can quickly explore and figure out how the tools work. This makes sense to me because as teachers, we are much older than students. They have a future ahead of themselves and they live in a more digital world than we (teachers) have experienced growing up. Like in other mediums classes, teachers' roles are just being good facilitators for the class to explore materials and the possibilities out there for them to discover! 

HW#11/4: Lesson Plan-Sound

 Learning Object: Through creating an one-minute mix sound track of 5 objects by using Audacity, students will learn that various sound and the duration of time can convey a narrative.

  Material: Audacity app

  Spark/Motivation: 
 1. what kind of music do you like to listen and why?
 2. What kind of sound do you dislike and why not?
 3. Are there any other tools to make music besides instruments? 4. How can you use sound to convey a scary/upbeat atmosphere?

HW#11/3: Empty Assignment-Laser Cutting Placemat

I found an image that was similar to a mandala for my placemat.Originally I wanted to print it out on a piece of thin wood but there was no such material. Therefore, I chose two pieces of plexiglass sheets I liked. I tried the transparent one as a test before I printed out the gray one. I like the moment when I took out some part of the piece and saw an optical illusion happening between the pieces. I also noticed that I enjoyed project more if the object I chose was interesting to me or useful to me. For example, I was very excited about this placemat and the candle holders. I started to test them out and package them in real life because they are personal and useful!

HW#11/2: Research Artist: 3D Printing

Dario Santacroce is an Italian artist who worked with 3D Printing for his ‘Spherical Creations’ series when he "realized that his vision for perfect forms could not be accomplished through traditional means." Santacroce wanted to see if it was possible with modern technology to represent a perfect spherical form as a true 3-dimensional sculpture. The curved forms of his ‘Spherical Creations’ are based on three interlocking structures that give rise to the so-called Reuleaux Triangle. Coming from a traditional sculpture background, Santacroce had to model and print special shaping tools for the sandstone prints, combining 3D printing with hand finishing for allowing him to precisely sand the prints to the final desired shape.

HW#11/1: 3D Printing-Candle Holder

I had so much fun designing my model on Tinkercad and using MakeBot to print out my candle holder. I played around TinkerCad for a while in class just to get used to the tools: how to adjust size, make a hole, and make it 3D (from various angles). My difficulty was to try to find the center of the object. Although we talked about the ways to find the center, I still found it a little hard. It needed time and patience.
Printing the object was quite easy with Jessie's help. She guided me and showed me how to print and how to use the USB to transfer the file to MakeBot and print it.

Tinkercad model:

 Outcome:
 1st Try (without support):

 2nd Try (with support):

Putting it in use:

HW: 10/3 Peer Review/ Comments

I commented on the following peers: Anita, Ava, Hannah, Gina, Jihyun, Nina, Jessica. I was interested in seeing their Scratch and stop motion projects because I liked stop motion project and I didn't enjoy Scratch as much. I really enjoyed looking at each other's work because it always has been educational to me. I was surprised to see how much variety exists in our works. Many of the works I saw had a great sense of humor. I was impressed by the fact that some people used very simple object/ idea to make into something very funny or deep. To my surprise, regardless the negative feedback from the class, I was amazed how well they did in their Scratch project!

HW: 10/2 Reading Reflection

The required reading was informative to me because it talked about the digital prospective in education and how technology can benefit students in expressing themselves and explore the possibilities out there. For example, the author mentioned that kids can explore story-telling through photography and films made by students. Not only this approach is student centered but the mediums also relate to the pop culture which students can associate. In addition, I liked the fact that the author introduced various applications and website for digital art making and online communication. I checked out Leah Buechley's Ted Talk which was mentioned in the reading, the talk was very educational for me in terms of how art teachers can incorporate art, technology, and science together in artmaking. This was inspiring and informed me how far this could expand.

HW#10/1 Ethching Outcome

Gina and I wanted to etch out a girl on a swing. We had a hard time switching from Photoshop to Illustrator. In the process of using these two apps, we were lost in many areas. We didn't know how to change the background, and switching over the images. At ThingSpace, we chose a thin wooden board to etch the image. It came out very nicely. I like the texture on the board on itself combined with the sharp edges in the image, which also creates a nice texture. The whole experience was very cool because laser cutter makes one's life easier to cut out or etch on objects. I think this is a very good way to test out how image works on specific surfaces in a faster way.